"If the gracious lady will excuse me saying so," said the landlord's daughter, who was standing close by full of sympathy, "there is a gentleman near here who makes it his business to bring up little canaries from eggs. He is very clever. We might go to see him, and ask him to look at the poor wing."

"Certainly," said Mamma, "that would be a very good idea. But I don't quite know how to take Coo-coo. I am afraid it is not good for her to hold her so long in my hand, and the cage is completely smashed."

"We have an empty cage—a very small one, that used to hang at the door with our old starling," said the good-natured Anna, and off she ran for it.[Pg 63]

[Pg 63]

"The Canary-gentleman."

We settled Coo-coo as well as we could with some cotton-wool for her to rest upon. But once in the cage, so long as she did not attempt to flutter about, she did not seem very bad, and my spirits rose a little. Still we must have seemed rather a doleful procession making our way along the street, for my face and eyes were swollen with crying, and Charley looked very grave, as we followed Mamma and Anna, Mamma carrying the starling's cage containing poor Coo-coo, as if it was the most wonderful treasure that ever was seen. And all the people came out of the shops and houses to look at us, for already the news had spread of the terrible misfortune that had happened to the little "foreign" lady, and several people whose shops we had sometimes been to nodded their heads, and said, "Poor little Miss," very sympathizingly, as we passed. I couldn't help feeling rather ashamed, and I wished my eyes were not quite so red.

It was such a funny place where the gentleman of the canaries, as Anna called him, lived. We went down a very narrow passage, and, across a little court-yard and down another passage and up a rickety stair and at last found ourselves in a room filled with birds—nothing but birds, and all canaries! There were cages and cages full of them—grown up ones and old ones, and baby ones just[Pg 64] hatched. Some were singing brilliantly, so that we could scarcely hear ourselves speak, and the man who had come forward to meet us took us into another room, a little kitchen, where there were only one or two cages and no noise.

[Pg 64]

He was a shoemaker as well as a birdfancier—he had on a leather apron, and he had a half-made boot in his hand when we went in. But plainly, what he considered his 

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